Nigerian Nurse on Trial over the Death of Baby who Bled To Death after Botched Home Circumcision in the UK

A 66 year-old Nigerian nurse, Grace Adeleye, is currently on trial for the death of a four-week-old baby boy who bled to death after a botched home circumcision. Goodluck Caubergs was only 27 days old when he died after bleeding to death for several hours the day after Adeleye carried out the procedure.

She carried out the procedure without anaesthetic and using only a pair of scissors, forceps and olive oil at the boy’s parent’s home in Oldham.

Goodluck was born on March 22, 2010, in Rochdale and died on April 17, 2010. His parents, also from Nigeria, were introduced to Adeleye by a friend as she had performed many circumcisions over the years and offered her ‘experience and skill’. Here’s an account of what happened the day before the boy’s sad death as reported by Daily Mail.

Around 5pm on April 16, Goodluck’s father, Olajunti Fatunla, brought Adeleye by car to the family home — and the nurse sent him immediately to get some Calpol while she and the mother, Sylvia Attiko, got on with the op.

Once inside, Adeleye told the boy’s mother to fetch some olive oil and a bowl of warm water and the child was stripped to just his vest. Adeleye then brought her ‘instruments’ out of her handbag and dipped a pair of scissors into the water in a kidney dish.

At that point Sylvia closed her eyes. Goodluck had had no anaesthetic or local pain relief at this point and that is not how this should be done. By the time Sylvia opened her eyes the operation was over. She could see the foreskin between the blades of the scissors.

Adeleye then cleaned the wound with cotton wool and applied a bandage.

The boy was ‘crying throughout’ and the wound was bleeding, but Adeleye told the mother this was normal. The defendant left the house between 30 and 40 minutes after surgery and the £100 had been handed over, without any proper checks on the patient after the procedure, it is alleged.

Later the parents found the bandage had come off the wound, which dripped with blood and there was blood in the child’s nappy.

The report further stated that he continued bleeding and when the parents called Adeleye two and a half hours later, she told them the bleeding was normal and ‘not a problem’ and advised a change of nappy and bandage and to apply olive oil. However, the following morning it was clear something was wrong and at 7.20am an ambulance was called. A post-mortem examination found Goodluck died from blood loss after the procedure.

Adrian Darbishire, prosecutor of the case said circumcisions were routinely carried out among Christian families in Nigeria who brought the tradition with them to the UK, and the procedure was an ‘ancient, well established and widespread’ practice across the world.

Speaking about the parent’s actions after the procedure, Darbishire told the jury “To delay and reassure was simply not appropriate. His parents remained concerned but they had been reassured by the defendant.”

“I have no doubt there will be much criticism of the parents by their inaction. But can I invite you to consider this. One of the hardest things as a parent, especially parents of a young child, is knowing when to be worried and how worried to be. But on the other hand no one wants to make a fuss about nothing.“

He concluded by saying “His death was wholly unnecessary. He bled to death over a period of many hours when medical assistance, which could have saved his life, was minutes away.”

The trial, scheduled to last two weeks, was adjourned until tomorrow morning.

***

Although it’s over two years since Goodluck passed on, this news hurts and we pray that his soul Rests In Peace.

Male circumcision procedures in most Nigerian communities is usually carried out the way Adeleye did for the boy. In this regard, do you think the parent’s delay in calling for medical attention or the method of carrying out the procedure is to blame for the boy’s sad death?

About Adeola Adeyemo

Adeola Adeyemo is a graduate of Industrial Relations and Personnel Management from University of Lagos. However, her passion is writing and she worked as a reporter with NEXT Newspaper. She believes that anything can be written about; anything can be a story depending on the angle it is seen from and the writer's imagination. When she is not writing news or feature articles, she slips into her fantasies and creates interesting fiction pieces. She blogs at www.deolascope.blogspot.com

66 Comments
on Nigerian Nurse on Trial over the Death of Baby who Bled To Death after Botched Home Circumcision in the UK

Anita…November 26, 2012 at 11:25 pm

OMG…..the same thing happened to my kid brother…..i remember it vividly even though i was a kid then,my aunt raised his blankie only to discover the cot beddings soaked tru wit blood.this was shortly after he had been circumcised…..thank God it wz discovered on time,he was rushed 2 d hospital nd operated on…..he is now a strapping 17 yr old lad…..i pray God to comfort that innocent baby’s parents.

But how does some one perform a circumcision without anaesthetic biko??? not even sucrose given b4 procedure…hmmm being a nurse in 9ja and being one abroad no be the same thing…easy to enter but mess up first…u go understand sey the big pay no be only for big big motor

dont say what u dont know….ask doctors or nurses in nigeria before u make comments…..they do not need to give anaesthetics for circumcision and am sure if urs was done in niger it was the same…….the issue here is the parents were stupid enough to delay going to the hospital when the bleeding started……..bleeding has happend with some children but its not usual so u shld report to the doctor immediately……

For heavens sake why? This is so sad. When the parents found out that something was wrong with their son they would have seek professional help immediately.The death of their son is so uncalled for. It could have been prevented. May his soul RIP.

Nah his foolish parents killed their child. They should be on trial.
How would you let an uncertified person do that to your child even without anaesthetic.
God, I can only imagine the pain that child went through!

How many medical books have you read. Most of the circumcisions are done in Nigeria without anesthesia. Its a minor procedure. Anesthesia can be used the but absence of anesthesia is not a contraindication. Hope you learnt something from the internet today smartass

Its a pity. Surgical procedures, no matter how ‘small’ should always be done in a standard hospital. Parents should avoid risking d lives of their precious little ones & wen a baby is involved,its better to worry than sit back & hope that all goes well.

Nigerians abroad have to be very careful , esp the ones in the Uk, they think they are in Nigeria where you can do what you like and get away with it. I dont understand why pple still believe in all this local …..!

A sad story indeed! This child died of hemorrhage and everything that go with it and not because of pain. It will be beautiful to alleviate pain during this procedure, but until the emegence of pain management circumcisions were done in the without local anesthesia. I wonder though what this nurse was using the hot water and olive oil for. Even in Nigerian public health system, these items are not used for circumcision and it is mostly nurses/midwives who circumcise babies at home. Was the nurse certified? Where did she learn her trade? The whole blame as far as am concerned rests on the nurse. She did not educate the parents well. If she had told them the possible complications, what to watch out for, what to do when it happens this would not happened. Again, when the parents kept calling her she should have gone to look and reassure them even if it was nothing.
Poor parents they learned the had way.
Bleeding and infection are the most common complications of circumcision and can happen even in hospitals. But with close observation these could be picked up early and be taken care
of.

Sisi nenenne you comment is just like some one with no head where you there do you just believe everything paper says to sell any way people like you with no job or nothing to do go on Internet and start saying wrong things first of all hospitals don’t do it here and secondly if your child is bleeding would you wait till he died before you call ambulance this family has no right to be in uk they just need a paper to stay and it you 9ja that plans such things which is on heard of what make you think she dint tell me to call ambulance always think before you post a comment most of you are not saint

The procedure never should have been performed to start with. It is a barbaric cosmetic mutilation, damaging and the most disgusting violation of human rights that exists today. Circumcision will NOT prevent HIV – if this myth were true then the United States (where 80% of men are mutilated) would be nearly free of the disease, yet the US has higher rates of HIV and all other STD’s than Europe where the majority of men are genitally intact. Stop surgically raping children!

Circumcision isn’t a substitute for bathing and tradition is never justification to do anything. Human sacrifice and cannibalism are “traditions” but barbaric nonetheless. Foreskin is normal. Circumcision is not.

In what way is circumcision ‘clean’? You yourself said ‘you think everybody wants to walk around with….’ but babies don’t think so why not wait and let them have a choice in the matter..if you had to undergo this cosmetic procedure as a full grown adult with no pain relief I wonder if you’d still be so pro-circumcision. Babies are perfect the way God created them, no need to subject them to unnecessary pain..

Only Nigerians !!! Its 4am and this story has gotten me so aggravated. When Nigerians would learn the proper thing to do and actually do them,maybe,just maybe we might progress as a nation.
I see crap like this regularly at work. A circumcision is a surgical procedure for which only a DOCTOR is licensed to perform! I don’t know about the health laws in the UK but this should be gross malpractice. I have patients come in with their children in moribund states and i ask why they hadn’t brought the child to see us earlier and they say ‘i took him to a pharmacy’.I just want to yell at them. Is a pharmacist a doctor? He is licensed to dispense the drugs a DOCTOR prescribed. Pharmacists want to sell their drugs and so would give you a cocktail of all they think you can afford in their shop.Infact not even pharmacists, ‘chemists'(whatever on earth that means). When the child is so far gone that there is little or nothing that can be done to definitively help, they would say the child died in the hospital.No ma’am you brought a live cadaver you and your chemist and local nurse had concocted to the hospital in the first place.
We dont even use scalpels for circumcisions anymore. That practice stopped light years ago. A simple device called a plastibel does a clean job with an amazing minimal to no bleeding. But nigerian parents want to save money in the UK. At what cost?Expensive legal fees that’s what. It annoys me that its not just the uneducated that make this mistake. ‘Learned’ professionals do the same. Does an architect perform the same function as a civil engineer? Do you hire a paralegal to defend you in court? In this country that anything goes, yes to all. Mscheww. Kai! I’m so pained! God would help us all.

Both the parents and the nurse deserve some jail time. Circumcisions are simple procedures that do not require any anesthetic but must be done as a sterile procedure and follow up must be very close for this very reason, these poor kids can bleed like crazy!
Sisi nurse, you are very unprofessional and incompetent. You could collect the 100 pounds but not make a trip back to reassess your patient or recommend that the parents take him to the ER?
Parents- You no do well in sitting and watching someone use non sterile instruments on your child. And even if you want to plead ignorance, when you called Sisi nurse and she told you to apply olive oil, your common sense did not send you to hospital?

The nurse and the parents should be prosecuted for negligence. All owed a duty of care to the deceased infant and failed. How can a baby bleed hour after hour and the neither the nurse nor the parents bothered to take the child to a hospital to stop the bleeding?

Please dont mislead youself and others – rabbi’s cannot diagnose the myriad of bleeding disorder’s caused by various conditions like vitamin K, platelet deficiency, factor V deficiency to name a few. Circumcision in a medical facility in the U.K. may be relatively expensive but worth itinthe end as no amount of money can resurrect the dead.

Relax there…we know rabbis arent doctors (some may be by profession)but in London, they are the go-to people to perform circumsions. if a baby has an underlying blood disorder, that is another matter entirely…..

Such a sad story! This is wat happens in most Naija homes in the Uk- I mean having your child circumcised in the house. I was a victim as well but glad my son didn’t die. The only scar the immature circumcision left is a curled up tolly for my lil boy . When I say curled up, I mean the ‘uncircumcised’ Naija midwife had removed the skin of my boy’s tolly up to his belly which makes the tolly shrinks. He’s 8yrs old now and when I look at his tolly I can’t but help blame myself for the error, but in all of these I still have the grace to thank God that he’s alive today.

men because people dont want to pay hospitals? They should give parents jail time. Hospitals in the advanced world do circumcisions, this is one of those damn penny wise pound foolish situations that cost a life. Just stupidity all round.

Assumption is the lowest level of knowledge. The issue has nothing to do with wanting to avoid hospital bills. Circumcisions are not covered or done in UK hospitals because its not part of the British culture. It is however part of the Jewish and most African cultures and as a result cicrcumsicions are widely done by Jewish Rabbis in their homes in the UK, under very hygeinic conditions.

I have to disagree with the statement ‘Male circumcision procedures in most Nigerian communities is usually carried out the way Adeleye did for the boy’
I have three sons and each time they were circumcised by a trained doctor – in the doctor’s office. We were also provided with a 24 hour hotline – to call – in case we noticed anything amiss
With a little research, one can find a doctor who is trained to perform such a procedure. The practise is not restricted to Africans…Jews also circumcise their boys.

THE REASON PEOPLE DO NOT USE NHS FOR CIRCUMCISION IN THE UK IS THE FACT THAT THEY USUALLY HAVE A VERY LONG LIST OF PEOPLE WAITING TO BE CIRCUMCISED. WHEN I HAD MY BABY, THEY TOLD ME THE ONLY AVAILABLE SPACE WOULD BE IN 13WEEKS WHICH IS ALMOST LIKE 3MONTHS! I COULDN’T WAIT BUT A MIDWIFE AT THE HOSPITAL REFERRED ME TO THE JEWISH GUYS. THEY ACTUALLY HAVE REGISTERED CLINICS WHERE CIRCUMCISION IS DONE FOR BABIES FROM 2WEEKS. THEY ARE VERY PROFESSIONAL, USE ANESTHETICS AND DON’T EVEN LET THE PARENTS INTO THE SURGERY ROOMS, THEY HAVE AFTER – SURGERY CARE, THEY’LL USUALLY CALL AND CHECK UP ON THE BABY AND TELL YOU WHAT AND WHAT TO EXPECT. CHECK http://www.amsclinic.co.uk/aftercare.html

@bukola, I think you need to take your boy for further examinations. He is alive thank God but trust me, a man with a weird looking penis is scarred for life.

Local male circumcision is performed in the exact same way, no anaesthetic whatsoever, I don’t know how it’s done in advanced hospitals but it is the norm here, same as female circumcision or even ear piercing(which is just as painful). The only difference is for my son, a plastic looking ring was placed around the area and not just a bandage. The ring fell off after a few days when the wound had healed. This is a very sad case, as careless as the nurse was, I am sure she is very experienced and i doubt she set out to cause the boy’s death. But the parents were also negligent. 1stly why seek local methods when you are in the uk for heaven’s sake, even if you do(for our so-called cultural reasons), they should’ve taken him to the hospital just for routine checks, even before the unusual bleeding. It’s just a sad case all around.

Omg this is so sad, my heart goes out to the family and I pray God will strengthen them through this difficult time.

Ps: Bella Naija please stop posting all this Negative news about Nigerian woman this, Nigerian Man that…..please leave that alone for
Linda Ikeji, Naija Pals…Etc. Bella Naija is one of those family websites that people come to….to get a breath of fresh air when every other Naija
Website has been Occupied with Negative reports. Even if there is a Negative report and you guys put it up, don’t let it be right after one another because you guys are not known for this types of news and that was what made BellaNaija special….please ooo, God Bless

Uhmmm I’m going to need you to slow your horses…who said BellaNaija wasn’t doing a good job? Infact, they are still the BEST in my opinion, im just saying what I feel just like everyone else so wetin concern you and how does that affect your life in anyway? Mchewww… Lo sun joo

It’s so sad that the child died.. I did my son’s own about 7 weeks ago by a Nigerian midwife at my home in CatfordLondon though everything went well. I had to hold my son while the procedure was going on and I don’t think I will even use her again because my son went through a lot of pain and the midwife kept calling to check how my son was doing and due told what sign to look out for…

News is news! Whether its negative or not. BN is doing a good job.This news is in all the papers in UK. It is very important it is covered as it might save another child’s life if a parent reads it.
The parents of the baby used this “nurse” to save money. I circumcised my son 2 years ago in UK and was surprised at the cost of £160 to have the circumcision done by a qualified Rabbi. I was also told by friends, thinking they were helping of other people that could perform the procedure for a cheaper price. One cannot put a price on a life. I decided to use the Rabbi. We need to realise that circumcision is a Jewish tradition and they are the best at it. Africans in general need to drop this money saving attitude when it comes to life and death. We will happily pay money to buy new shoes and bags for a party etc. Rant over..

My mother who is a trained nurse for 36yrs told me my cicumcision was not carried out with in her words “a pair of damm siscors”How wicked and uncaring are we? bandage and nappy.Dont these people know a trained rabbi with experience exists?This poor wasted life.

Thank you jare.Na 4 stamford hill,london where thousands of rabbis reside.Thats where we found a competant and experienced rabbi.So all u nijah wey wan save your children from pain,dont pretend u dnt kno.The worst thing abt this is that these are educated people but with a lack of pity for their own child.They dey lucky say na uk dem dey,if na yankee dem and the fake nurse go die for kriko.Yeye people.

Abi O. We all know where the rabbis are in stamford hill,so there is no excuse to go call corner corner nurse.Go look inside the parents wardrobe u go see thousands of pounds of show off clothes for party and miliki.Yet when it comes to your own child you want to save money.
If mo and i can be honest enough to admit to using rabbis in hackney then im sure there must be thousands more like us.How can you save money when a childs welfare is at sake?Or am i missing something?Please tell them again,if you find yourself in uk and cant wait till you get home go to stamford hill in hackney london.Lets save our childrens lives not be the cause of their demise.I think ive said too much.make una no vex

@ all these rabbi people…. Who perform circumcision in nigeria? I believe the nurse did it well is just the procedure went wrong and she should have allowed the parents to take the child to the hospital since the boy was bleeding and according to the post, she’s being doing circumcision before….

@Imohazel….Circumcision is performed by Obstetricians, Midwives,
Physician Assistants (PAs) in the United States. The only time a surgeon does circumcision is when an adult male, who was not circumcised as a child decides to have it done. This is of course done in the Operating Room and the individual must be put to sleep…General Anesthesia. Baby circumcisions are done under local anesthesia on the floors/wards.

Some Nhs surgeries do it now and it doesn’t cost as much as 100 pounds except that it’s a long wait to get an appointment. Clean, straightforward and under hygienic condition. All in all, may we not be a victim of bad incidence. May God console everyone involved.

This woman should go to jail for murder. What is wrong with her brain that she thinks she can just cut up a child, kill him, and get away without so much as a slap on the wrist? This woman endangered a child’s life for money. She should be punished. The parents should be punished as well for stupidity in the first degree. There is no excuse to seek out some random woman to perform unnecessary surgery on your child’s genitals.

lessons for he who has ears to hear…..the parents shld have gone to the jews who are certified and even recommended by hospitals…….then even if it was done at home it shld have been under hygienic conditions cos some ple have done it at home and had no problems……lastly they shld have taken their child to the hospital as soon as they noticed the bleeding…….in all i blame the parents cos na dem get dia pickin and shld have done all humanly possible to find the best means to circumcise their child….